


Sinking Ships

by Linnrinn



Series: Death Is Only The Beginning... [8]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:28:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28559811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linnrinn/pseuds/Linnrinn
Summary: The Guard goes to rescue Booker and put an end to what threatens their family.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Death Is Only The Beginning... [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2066418
Comments: 7
Kudos: 61





	Sinking Ships

**Author's Note:**

> as per usual, any speakers fluent in a language that i've had to use google translate for, please feel free to offer up a more adequate version!
> 
> i cant tell you how many tabs open ive had for this story...how far can a cessna plane go on a tank of gas? anatomy of a plane's cockpit? distance from a norway airport to Surrey? how do you hot wire a plane? blue prints for the roger revelle research lab vessel? just to try and make places ive never been and theorized traveling logistics seem at least mildly plausible lol.
> 
> anyways, if you havent read my other stories prior to this, i recommend you start there! or this story will seem super disjointed.

The last thing any of them expected was for Andy to gasp and sit up. And it scared the shit out of them, rather ironic since they saw each other come back to life often.

Quynh, who had been hovering over her body, fell back in shock.

“Fucking shit balls!” Nile shot up from the ground and had skipped a few feet away before she’d even realized she was moving, cursing as she went.

Nicky crossed himself, blue eyes wide.

Joe blinked several times, not quite believing his ocular abilities were functioning.

Andy watched them all for a moment, green eyes taking in their reactions before she looked down at her hands, opening and closing them in disbelief. She noticed the blood staining her side and lifted the cloth to find her side painted in the dried stuff, but no wound. She ran her fingers over the unbroken skin and looked back at them.

“Andy?” Nile asked in a small voice, cautiously stepping closer.

“ _Dio Santo_ ,” Nicky breathed.

“ _Yah Allah_ ,” Joe agreed in wonder.

“How can this be?” Quynh murmured, hesitantly reaching out to Andy’s face. “Andromache?”

“Quynh,” she whispered, realization and joy dawning on her face. “I’m here.”

More tears, this time of exultant joy filled Quynh’s eyes and she laughed out loud, throwing herself onto Andy, who laughed in return and pulled her tight. Then she opened her arms in invitation and the others rushed in, dog piling in an enthusiastic mess of arms and legs. They all babbled at each other, in different languages at the same time as they wiped each other’s tears.

“But how?” Nile finally asked, gripping one of Andy’s hands like she would drift away if Nile let go.

Andy shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ve never encountered this before.” Spying a piece of glass, she picked it up and carefully sliced her thumb, holding her breath. It dripped blood and then sealed closed. Andy smiled. “I’m not going to waste time wondering how or why.”

She looked at the faces around her and then suddenly grew serious. “Booker. We need to go get him.”

Nicky grinned. “You’re late to the party. We already agreed to go after him.”

“There wasn’t much disagreement about it in the first place,” Joe added.

Andy nodded, climbing to her feet, prompting everyone to do the same. She began poking around the rubble for her labrys, shoving through debris.

Nile had figured it was lost and grinned giddily when Andy bent and straightened with it in her hand. “We need to get to a phone and call Copley.”

“We have no idea where they’ve gone,” Quynh frowned. “They could be anywhere. And it could take a while to locate them.”

“If we head to Surrey, we can use Copley’s house as home base while he finds them.”

“We need to find the closest airstrip,” Andy decided. “I’m going to hot wire a plane.”

\- - -

They found a very nice young man who allowed them to use his phone. He watched them across the cafe they’d stepped into as Nile frantically tapped the screen. They looked rather horrible even with the snow they’d use to wash off the worst of the gore. It was drawing attention but it was the least of their worries.

When Copley answered the video call, he looked relieved and panicked in equal measure. “I’ve been trying to reach you all for days! What the hell use is a phone if I can’t reach you?!”

“The storm!” Nile realized. “The snow storm over the past few days must have disrupted the signal to our phones.”

Copley muttered about off the grid warehouses and frowned. “That’s not important right now! You all need to know that-“

“Kozak is alive and after us,” Andy informed him.

And Copley nodded in surprise. “How did you-” And that’s when he noticed the absence of one of their own. “Where is Booker?”

“Kozak has him,” Joe filled in succinctly.

“We need you to find him.” Nicky tacked on to his husband.

Copley nodded, swiveling his chair to begin aggressively typing away on his keyboard. “I’m gonna start immediately. Get your asses over here so we don’t have to play phone tag. You’ll know as soon as I’ve found something.” He ended the video call without fanfare.

Returning the phone, they cut the almost two and a half drive to Bergen Airport in half and committed seamless aircraft theft in the dead of night. Sneaking into one of the hangars, Nicky and Joe incapacitated the security and stood watch while Nile and Andy broke into the plane.

Behind them, Quynh stared up at the plane in bewilderment. “Can this metal bird truly fly, Andromache?”

Andy and Nile paused, still adjusting to someone who had not experience the modern technology of the past few centuries.

“Yes, _người yêu dấu_ , it will fly.” Andy grinned as she finally jimmied the door open.

“And it will not drop us?” Quynh asked warily.

“No.”

“Not that it matters now. We don’t have to worry about you surviving a plane crash,” Nile added giddily. Andy was immortal again. The weight that she’d felt, that they’d all felt for months, was lifted and gone like water vapor.

Andy hot-wired the plane with ease and then they were flying towards Surrey. Joe and Nicky had taken up the bench seat in the back of the plane, their longer frames jammed humorously at uncomfortable angles, catching a couple more hours’ worth of sleep after having stayed up all night. Quynh had reveled in awe during take-off, nose pressed to the glass as the world grew smaller under them. She’d giggled in delight, the first unrestrained joy that Nile realized she’d heard from the woman. And it made Nile even happier to witness Andy looking through the rearview at Quynh, her green eyes softening at the sight. After thirty minutes, the stress of the previous night must have sapped Quyhn because she too, finally fell asleep in one of the passenger chairs facing the guys, leaving Andy flying and Nile as the co-pilot. Andy was pointing out the different features and necessities of flying to Nile, saying one day she’d need to learn. The lists of buttons and levers and gauges paused when the Scythian noticed Nile just watching her curiously.

“What?”

“I thought you had left us,” Nile finally admitted, her voice tremulous.

Andy turned green eyes to her. “I didn’t.”

“But I thought you did,” Nile answered. Tears filled her brown eyes, and Andy reached forward to put that comforting hand on Nile’s neck and bring her as close as she could with the console between them.

“I’m still here.” She reassured her quietly.

“I don’t know what we would have done if you were really gone,” the other woman admitted.

Andy smiled, pulling back to adjust a lever or two. “You would have been fine.”

Nile shook her head. “No. I wasn’t ready for you to be gone. None of us were.”

Andy paused, contemplating. “Maybe the others weren’t. But you were. If I did pass, I know the family would have been alright with you leading them.”

Nile shook her head in frustration. “I don’t think so, Andy. Looking at you lying there, all I could think was how it would all go wrong, everyone falling apart and it being all my fault because you thought wrong about me.”

“You are young and new, but I recognized it the first time I met you.” Andy response was fierce, so inundated with assurance. “I knew that the day I lived my last, you would watch over and lead this family.”

“Why me, Andy?” Nile sighed, feeling so very unqualified in that moment. “What do I have that the others don’t that qualifies me for this responsibility?”

“You have loyalty in your bones and kindness in your blood. Courage to your core.”

“Nicky is also kind,” Nile fired back. “Joe is loyal as they come. Booker has courage.”

Andy raised a brow at her.

“He just needs to find it.” Nile sighed. “Not me, Andy. Choose anyone but me.”

“I chose you because each of those things I mentioned…you have them all. And you are stronger than us. Than me. You will hold to the purpose of doing good when I lost it. You will push Booker to the right path when all I did was enable him down the wrong one. You will love and care for Joe and Nicky. You will help Quynh heal. I wouldn’t leave my family in anyone else’s hands but yours, Nile Freeman.”

Nile stared back at her, both honored and skeptical.

Andy nodded. “But until I am gone, I will be more intentional about preparing you. I promise to do all I can to prepare you now.”

“I won’t let you go for a long while then,” Nile grinned, a little more at ease with that promise.

“I will stay as long as I have life to.” Andy casually reached over and turned flight controls over to Nile without warning, leaving the younger black woman to swear and grab for her control wheel. The plane tipped erratically, jostling Joe and Nicky enough that they tumbled to the plane floor.

“You said we would not fall out of the sky!” Quynh accused behind their shoulders, black hair tangled and eyes groggy. Joe was cursing in Arabic and glaring at the cockpit. Nicky rolled his eyes though it was hiding a smile.

“Andy! It was Andy!” Nile informed them defensively. For her part, Andy just smiled mischievously and leaned back to watch Nile work the controls, throwing out pointers and reminders on occasion.

A ways outside of Surrey, Andy took back control and smoothly brought the plane to the ground in some farmland (which would be a definite surprise to the owners when discovered). Additional hot wiring and they drove another car the last remaining distance to Copley’s house. Copley answered the door in relief, before ushering them inside. He led them to his den, where his computer and the infamous immortal boards sat. Quynh intently inspected the board, filling in the gap of centuries that she’d been gone. Copley eyed her curiously as he caught them up on what he’d found.

“I tried to call you days ago to warn you. Kozak was alive. She used another corpse to fake out the ME’s when she burned the lab. Merrick must have been fond of her in some way because he left her sizable funds in offshore accounts that she ended up using to hire the mercenaries tracking you.”

“A group led by none other than Keane’s brother,” Joe pointed out. “Sounds like a family business.”

“Can you track them?” Nile asked. “We need to get to Booker.”

Copley frowned. “I’m going to do my damndest. Let’s just hope I have as speedy of results as your travels here.”

In the end, speedy results eluded them. Copley found nothing in those first few days and would continue to find nothing for weeks. Months. The waiting was the worst part. Absolutely miserable. The constant tension of wanting to move but having no idea in what direction made them jumpy and stressed. And then one day, Copley figured it out.

“I got it!” He burst through the door to his backyard where the Guard had marked out a simple sparring ring for the time being. Today was sword practice and Copley had the unfortunate opportunity to see Quynh get the drop on Nicky and catch his side with her Kiem. Nicky grunted and Quynh held him up apologetically as his abdomen knit back together. Copley looked slightly green, but continued anyway.

“I found them!” He repeated.

Andy immediately snapped up from where she was watching the sparring, her movements intent and eager with the possibility of the beginning hunt. “Where?”

“Everywhere!” Copley crowed, waving a rather large stack of papers with statistics and words and data as if it automatically meant something.

“Uh, that definitely narrows it down,” Nile said from where she had been lying in a sunny patch of grass in her sports bra since Joe managed to catch his saif across her back in their sparring (Joe owed her a new shirt). She had sat up on her knees at Copley’s announcement and rocked restlessly in anticipation.

“There’s the saying ‘water, water everywhere’…”

“A boat,” Nicky deduced immediately.

“A floating research boat,” Joe narrowed it down as he sat against a tree trunk, polishing his saif under its shade.

Copley grinned, shaking the papers for emphasis. “Exactly! It was hard enough to track them in general, let alone across different ports in different countries along different continents.”

“So, where are they?” Quynh asked. She sheathed her sword and buckled it to her waist as if she were already packed and ready to go

“I don’t know.” Copley mused.

The rest of the Guard gave him looks ranging from exasperation to I-am-moments-away-from-strangling-you.

“I don’t know _yet_ ,” he amended, chagrined. “You see, I was able to hunt down a digital storehouse that Kozak is sending all of her research too. A safe house for her research, if you will.”

Nile snapped two of her fingers in realization. “And if it’s a digital signal, we might be able to trace it depending on how often she backs up her data.”

“Which ranges from every few days to, sometimes, every day,” Copley finished triumphantly. “We monitor her trajectory and it will point us in the direction of where to run her to ground.”

“Won’t she be so surprised to see us,” Andy purred dangerously.

\- - -

Booker screamed his agony, bucking against the restraints strapped to the major joints of his body and torso. His head was held immobilized as well, gaze fixed to one point on the brightly lit ceiling. He would’ve imagined he was one of those bugs pinned to a board on display in a collection if he had the presence of mind to do so. His world was narrowed, tunnel visioned on the constant pain and trauma his body was sustaining. He mentally apologized for what he’d done to put Nicky and Joe through this for days.

Booker didn’t want to breathe, seeing as how each inhalation of breath jarred his ribcage where an incision from the bottom of his sternum to his side split him open. The skin was held back by clamps, preventing his healing and allowing Kozak to peer inside. Even worse, she’d removed pieces of his rib cage with a saw, constantly cracking open the bone that tried to grow back as she collected samples from the different lobes of his liver.

“The liver is regenerative, you know,” Kozak said conversationally, like she wasn’t scraping tools across his organs to collect cells. “Even without immortality, its ability to regrow has been crucial in liver transplants. If I can figure out how your body harnesses this ability in all areas at the rate it does, the possibilities are endless! Your cellular division and growth rate is otherworldly in speed, compared to a normal human. Additionally, your Blastema cells are able to recall the body’s structure and emulate it, down to scars it had before the trauma.”

Booker had recalled her fascination with cutting out a scar he’d gotten from a skirmish his infantry had participated in prior to the start of his immortality. Upon every instance of being removed, his skin would grow back with that scar looking exactly as it had previously. She’d even held up the previous flap of skin to compare. He’d lost count of the deaths he’d suffered and the forms of torture he’d endured.

He died when she’d bashed his brain in, watching it grow back and then asking questions to determine if he had retained memories despite the destruction. He’d also hemorrhaged to death when she’d separated his arm from his shoulder and left him there to watch the severed limb grow cold and turn necrotic. She’d been disappointed to find severed limbs from the body showed none of the immortal traits that connected pieces did, turning to normal dying tissue once it wasn’t a part of him. He’d slowly suffocated when she’d removed his lung. And while removing his entire heart had been painful, it had ended rather quickly once she’d sliced through his aorta and both vena cavas’. After he’d awoken, she’d informed him that it had taken an hour to regenerate his lung and many hours for the heart. He hadn’t died when she’d ripped his eyeball out, but with all the nerves there he’d wished he had.

At the same time, he welcomed the pain. He preferred to get lost in it before he fell unconscious. He didn’t particularly like dying. For anyone else, it promised an end. He had no such guarantees. So, the safe place was the pain, as horrible it was.

Kozak was speaking again. Booker ignored her. He felt the pain move as she went from scraping from the right lobe of his liver to the left.

“So quiet,” Kozak noted as she worked. “Your Italian friend talked to me, at least. The other man just yelled, which was just vexing. I think the old one…she was the only one quieter than you.”

“ _Va te faire foutre, salope_ ,” Booker snarled at the mention of Andy.

Kozak raised a fair colored brow. “Hm. Just as well. I can work in silence.”

Booker stared up at those damn bright ceiling lights, willing the images of the house exploding to stop invading his mind. The massive ball of flame had consumed someone he’d loved, when he’d thought he was done loving and losing. Andy. Grief gutted him worse than Kozak’s scalpel. The first few days he’d wept whether she was cutting into him or not. Andy had been a sister to him, taking him in and putting up with him no matter how much his drinking and extreme nihilism had inconvenienced or caused dissonance between the family. She’d loved him when he was the most difficult to love.

He regretted that he couldn’t keep his promise to watch out for the family, especially their newest and youngest. But he was resigned to it all the same. His only comfort being that his family would stay safe. In the end, he had been able to pay for just a sliver of the debt his actions and choices had accrued. It was his one and only attempt at keeping his promise to Andy.

Booker grunted in pain when the forceps keeping his skin apart were yanked out. Bones grew and cracked back into place. Skin sealed. Kozak watched with rapt attention.

“Fascinating. In ancient times, you would have been considered a practitioner of wizardry. A wielder of dark arts and magic. You would have been envied and exalted…idolized.”

“I think you mean hunted, misunderstood and demonized.” Booker answered in English.

Kozak leaned into his field of vision, giving him a manic obsessive look he’d become familiar with for however long he’d been in this god-forsaken lab. “I will make sure you are honored for your contribution. Immortalized, if you will. Both of us will be written permanently into history.”

“The author of your own villain’s story,” Booker said. “The perfect fit for someone taking away free will and torturing someone under the banner of good intentions.”

“And you think yourself the martyred hero?” she scoffed, absently putting tools into the autoclave. “Hardly. You are nothing more than the villain yourself, doomed to be fodder for the audience to consume in your defeat…No. Not even the villain. The goat on the sacrificial altar of plot devices and character motivations, existing to push other character arcs. Remember, you wanted this from the beginning. You came to _us_. You betrayed your own in the first place. Perhaps this is your reckoning.”

She had a point, and therein lay the irony. He had thought that this had been what he’d wanted in the first place. A chance for someone to find him his death. And now he just wanted to live. He wanted to be there to support Nile, get to know Quynh, share quiet moments with Nicky. He even wanted to watch a futbol game with Joe. He had been a fool to take for granted his second family. He had missed out on decades of love and support because he couldn’t move on from the past. And now he was lying on the stainless steel, metal bed he’d made.

“ _Maybe it’s the story of two villains. One, immersed in a delusion as a hero to humanity. One who get’s exactly what he deserves in the end._ ” Booker murmured in French, more to himself than her.

The whir of a circular hand saw made his blue eyes shoot open. Kozak had on a pair of clear safety goggles. “Let’s take a peek in your frontal lobes again, shall we?” Booker never bothered to wonder why she never put him to sleep, even for the few moments that the anesthesia would actually work through his system. He just screamed and screamed from the pain until he passed out. Those few moments were heaven, before his immortality kicked in and brought him back to the hell he would continue to exist in till the end of his, no doubt, many days left to him.

He missed his family. But held onto the comfort that he had done all he could with the final moments he’d had with them. That _had_ to be enough. He prayed that they wouldn’t look for him. That they wouldn’t spend time on him when he’d set these events into motion all that time ago. He didn’t want them to forgive him only to know that deep down they resented him for the trouble he’d caused. He prayed they would recover from their grief.

He hoped that Quynh would not make his mistake and she’d choose to live after Andy being gone. He hoped she would make better of her second chance than he did of his.

He wanted for Joe and Nicky to always be together. That when their time came, it would be at the same time and the one would never experience having to live without the other.

He wished for Nile to grow to be something awe-inspiring. A force that not even Andy could rival as she protected the good in humanity and held their family together. She would be magnificent.

And finally, that Andy would be at peace. Whether it was in the vast nothingness after death, an afterlife where goodness and courage and honor were rewarded, or a new life in the world where happiness would find her.

With those thoughts in mind, he succumbed to the repetitive but undefined litany of pain where he registered nothing and felt nothing.

\- - -

Six black dressed figures crouched behind pallets of supplies, unnoticed in the dead of night, as a large research ship loomed in the waters near them.

Copley had successfully utilized the digital storage site to back trace the occasional signals. He’d found the ship’s hull registration after cross checking the history of ports the ship was recorded to visit. They continued to monitor the occasional spurts of data from the ship, a trail of virtual breadcrumbs that indicated the ship’s trajectory to the port in Singapore.

Once Kozak’s destination was known, it was a race to get to Singapore before them to monitor where they were making port. Arriving only days before their target, they had waited for it’s arrival. It had taken Copley time to determine which terminal the ship had berthed in, and then waiting till dark. The ship had already been resupplied, waiting to be bunkered. They only had a little time before it would depart again.

“Copley has a vessel waiting for us in the Tuas terminal. We get Booker and we get out of here like our asses are on fire,” Andy reminded them.

“Just a run-of-the-mill _VBSS_ ,’ Nile grinned.

“She does not speak English like I have heard before, Andromache,” Quynh muttered. The Vietnamese woman stared up at the boat in trepidation. She’d had a nightmare at the thought of having to board and sail on a boat and Andy had convinced her to stay with Copley. They couldn’t afford to have her go catatonic during a rescue mission. Quynh had been angry at the thought of having to stay behind, but saw the wisdom in it as well, admitting that she didn’t feel ready.

Andy tucked a piece of hair that had fallen out of Quynh’s loose braid. “Go with Copley and make sure the other craft is ready for when we bring Booker.”

“I will watch out for her,” Copley assured Andy. He had been amazed at hearing there was yet another immortal and both horrified and fascinated by her story.

Andy nodded at him, but Quynh elbowed her irritably. “If someone is watching over someone else, it will be me sitting on the baby that is Copley.” Modern idioms were fairly new territory for Quynh.

“We’re going to find her actually sitting on him when we come back,” Joe muttered, eyes scanning the ship’s deck for any patrol.

Andy rolled her eyes. “Go. We will follow you as soon as we have Booker.”

Quynh and Copley crept off, leaving the other four.

“Ready?” Andy asked them, lifting her silenced pistol and taking point.

Nile braced at her left shoulder. “Guess you go first for a little while longer.” It felt so good to say it, to know that they had Andy without fear of immediately losing her to a bullet or stab wound.

Nicky aligned on her right, gun braced against his shoulder and hood pulled over his head. His blue eyes glittered with focus. The ever-observant sniper. “When that guard turns the corners, we go.” Joe brought up the rear, guarding their backs and bracing them up from behind.

Andy didn’t take her eyes from the ship as she murmured. “Whatever it takes, we get him back. He is family.” Nile watched as Nicky nodded firmly and Joe placed a hand on Andy’s shoulder in affirmation. She sighed quietly in satisfaction, turning off her own mental distractions and worries to focus on the task at hand. Things were far from fixed, but they were one in this endeavor. They knelt behind the stacked cargo pallets, quiet and patient. So still even as they vibrated with adrenaline and anticipation.

“Go.” Nicky whispered. They moved, smooth as the water around them and silent as shadows. Mounting the gangplank, they got onto the deck. Copley had given them a blueprint of the class of ship for the infiltration, but they had no idea where Booker was being kept. They skipped the bridge, knowing that he would not be there. A cursory sweep of the other decks left them empty handed. They were cautious, avoiding the crowded areas such as the galley and crew quarters.

The first person they encountered was in the stairwell on the way to the main deck.

Andy moved like a wraith; the stairwell too small to bypass him. She flattened him against a wall and a hand covered his mouth and her gun digging into the space under his ear. “The lab. Kozak. Where?” The man mumbled to her behind her palm, but it didn’t seem to impede her ability to understand. Quickly, without fanfare, she broke his neck. Grabbing his radio and inserting the earpiece, she nodded. “Let’s go.”

Killing still didn’t settle well with Nile. She figured she would never wholly be okay with it, which was going to be interesting for the next few centuries. Andy never chastised her for it. Never tried to change her of it. Encouraged her actually, to never grow numb and accustomed to it. But she reminded Nile their immortality hinged upon secrecy and that their family’s safety mattered in regards to that secrecy. She’d understood that tonight, all of the people on the ship knew of at least Booker’s immortality if not all of theirs, and none would be leaving that ship.

Once they entered the main deck, the shooting started. Andy took the first bullet and went down to a knee, room enough for Nile to vault over her with a hand on the older woman’s shoulder for leverage as she returned fire. In a moment, Andy was up and moving, tapping Nile on the shoulder as she passed and turned another corner. Gunfire rang out when Joe and Nicky sighted guards approaching from the other doorway. As one, they covered each other and moved segmentally to the lab door. Quickly, they pushed inside and shut it, levering their guns in preparation. Kozak stood up in shock at their abrupt entry.

“How-” Andy punched her. Hard. The woman was out before she hit the deck.

“Booker?” Nile breathed in shock at where Booker was strapped to a table. There were more straps and restraining devices that she had seen at Merrick’s lab. He was naked on the table, Kozak giving him no attempts at dignity. At the sound of Nile’s voice, Booker’s breath caught.

“Nile?!” His voice broke on her name and then he began to weep, sobs wracking his body. “I told you not to come! Why would you come?! You need to leave.”

“Of course we would come, Booker!” Nile admonished gently, leaning over him into his field of vision. Joe was already next to her, helping undo the restraints. “Why do you think we wouldn’t?”

“She’s going to send people after you,” Booker warned desperately. “I want you all to be safe. This is the only way for her to leave you all alone.”

“No one is coming after us because they aren’t going to be leaving this boat,” Joe assured him, a dangerous glint in his eyes as he surveyed the tools around them. Booker didn’t have a mark on him, but bone saws, scalpels, and other power tools said enough.

“I killed her,” he cried. “It’s my fault, I killed her.”

Nicky moved to the computer in the corner of the lab, producing a small drive that he inserted. He didn’t know as much about tech as Booker, but the drive Copley provided had a software that would copy its contents and send it to their own digital storage location. They needed to ensure Kozak had not alerted anyone else of their abilities, so Copley has demanded records from Kozak’s computers and research.

“Kozak is still alive,” Nile grunted, working against some of the straps that were cinched so tightly she had trouble releasing them.

“No. _Andy_.” Booker clarified bitterly, tears falling into his wild untrimmed hair and beard. “ _C’est de ma faute. Je suis désolé. Je suis vraiment désolé._ ”

Nile and Joe’s hands paused and Nicky looked up from the computer. They’d forgotten. Andy looked at Booker in distress from where she stood next to Kozak’s unconscious form, mouth set in aggrieved line.

“Booker, _je suis là_ ,” Andy called gently, moving to take the side opposite of Nile and both of them lifting him to an upright position.

Booker’s blue eyes stared up at her in disbelief. He blinked a few times and then reached a shaking hand out to touch her cheek. “Andy? How?!”

Andy smiled, a pure one of joy, and placed her forehead against his, her hand braced on the back of his neck. “I guess I’ve just got more left in me.”

“She’s like the energizer bunny,” Nile added. “She just keeps going and going.”

“Apt,” Joe observed as Nicky returned to his side, drive in hand. “You could say the same of her sex life.” Snorts of laughter escaped them all as Nicky rummaged in a bin for a pair of scrub pants since his clothing was cut into pieces in a neglected pile on a countertop. Joe salvaged his boots as well, while Nile and Andy levered him to a shaky but standing position.

Booker weaved unsteadily; blonde brows knit together at the position change. “Haven’t stood for a while,” he explained. “they keep me strapped me to the table most of the time. How long has it been?”

The team looked at each other reluctantly. Andy grimaced. “Months, Book. It’s been months.”

The Frenchman was silent for a moment before he rasped out, “damn.”

“I’m sorry it took us so long,” Joe apologized quietly from where he was kneeling to help Booker lace up his boots.

Booker waited until Joe was standing in front of him. “You didn’t have to come for me at all, especially after what I’d done. So don’t apologize. Thank you for coming at all.”

“You are family,” Nicky said, handing him a gun from his waistband.

“And you were willing to give Kozak your years for us. Of course we’d come,” Nile added.

A clang reminded them of their, now escaped, hostage as she bolted through the door.

Nile leapt after her. “Shit! We can’t let her get away!” If Kozak escaped, they would never be safe. The others followed her as Nile gave chase, hopping over dead bodies as Kozak sprinted, just staying ahead of them.

“The rest of Damien’s team is alerted and gunning for us!” Andy shouted as they turned a corner, the earpiece from their stolen radio informing her. Nile, in the lead, was tackled by another kevlar vested man, slowing her progress. Nicky shot past her and lunged for the female scientist, missing her by inches as she rounded and ascended the tower stairwell to the next deck. Nile worked her way free but was a few steps behind as Booker shot another guard who just appeared in the hallway. Andy hauled Nicky to his feet and they ascended the stairs after Joe who was gaining on Kozak.

Joe caught and grappled her on the stairs for a moment but a guard above them entered the fray and extricated her from Joe’s grip.

“Go, Doctor,” the man yelled.

“They’re stalling us!” Joe yelled before twisting the man’s arm into submission to allow Nile to shoot him.

“Incoming!” Joe warned and the others hugged the wall as Joe sent the body tumbling to the bottom just as more men tried to go mount the stairwell. Booker laid down more cover fire as they frantically chased after Kozak.

“We haven’t got much time,” Andy shouted in between breaths as they charged up the remaining stairs past the decks. “The police and port security have been alerted! They will be on us all soon.”

They burst out onto the weather deck only to come face to face with assault rifles pointed at them by the remaining men on Damien’s mercenary team. They stood in a circle, yards away, guns fixed on them. In the distance, the sound of helicopter blades echoed in the night air.

Kozak stood safely ensconced behind her line of mercenaries. Her eyes took in the five of them. “I can’t say I’m surprised with the lack of honesty, about your numbers or holding up our deal.”

“We both know neither of us intended to keep any fucking deal. We will not let you leave, Kozak,” Andy shouted.

“I’m done with deals. You can join your friend back on my tables. I’m excited to have you all as my guests. Especially you.” She indicated Andy with avid interest in her eyes.

“That’s only if your boys here can actually win against five immortals.” Andy responded. “And I can assure you, we have no plans to be specimens in a Petri dish.”

Kozak gave her a measured look, nodding. “I don’t intend to risk it. Now, or later if I must, I will have you all under my knife.” The helicopter approached closer, obvious it was now Kozak’s getaway plan.

“Fuck,” Nile muttered. “We are not seriously about to let her leave?”

“We won’t make it in time,” Joe muttered.

“Can we follow or track her?” Nicky asked.

Booker shook his head. “With what?”

“We need to end this,” Andy reminded them, though her steely green eyes bore into the helicopter. “She won’t ever leave us be otherwise.”

The others nodded, hands tightening on their lowered weapons grimly. They were immortal, but a bullet to the body could slow them. A bullet to the brain or heart could stop them for several seconds, time they did not have. All the same, they all knew they’d have to try.

Before Andy could give the signal, the helicopter exploded, its charred skeleton plummeting to impact with the ship’s bow. The whole vessel rocked.

They had the presence of mind to use the moment, opening fire while diving behind cover. The hired hands open fired, bullets spraying wildly as the boat swayed from the fireball. Andy pulled Nicky with her when he collapsed from a bullet to the thigh and they ducked behind cover. Joe ducked behind the anchor’s windlass and Booker had tugged Nile with him behind a large generator.

Nicky peered around their cover and his eyes widened. “Andy!” He pointed and Andy followed his direction in time to see Quynh take a running leap from the dock onto the deck of the vessel. Her momentum tucked her into a shoulder roll from which she popped up and bolted across the deck towards Kozak and Damien, her Kiem flashing. Andy was moving without thought, taking a bullet to her shoulder and forearm that she didn’t heed in her anxious scramble to back her up.

“Nicky!” She shouted, pointing to Damien as she moved to hem Kozak in from the other direction when the mercenary moved to intercept Quynh. Nicky nodded and called Joe, moving under the supportive cover fire that Joe laid down for him. Another explosion sounded, and the boat listed dangerously to one side, sending everyone on the deck stumbling.

“What the hell is that?!” Booker yelled as they clung to anything to stay upright until it settled at an odd angle.

“I don’t know,” Nile yelled. She pointed at the few remaining men. “You and me, Book.” Booker nodded, following Nile’s lead as the two of them stalked and crept and advanced from cover to cover, shooting in staggered bursts to cover each other’s movement. Once close enough, Nile leapt over the supply crates one of the men crouched behind and pounced, knocking the man’s assault rifle aside to place a bullet above where his Kevlar ended above the neck. A flash of pain exploded in her shoulder from another of the men, but Booker was right behind her, barreling into him with a knee to the gut and a bullet into the vulnerable armpit.

Across the deck, Joe took out two more men that had moved to aid Damien and Kozak, leaving Nicky free to deliver a sliding low kick to Damien’s knee with a sickening crunch. The man buckled with a groan, but delivered an elbow to Nicky’s temple. The two men grappled and rolled before Nicky used his legs to wrap his opponent’s neck in a choke hold, grunting with the effort to hold it until the man went limp.

Kozak backed away in shock as her personal army fell to the Guard and then stopped short when Quynh’s Kiem came to rest under her chin. The others advanced on them, ringing the doctor in from all sides. Kozak’s face whitened.

“P-please,” she stuttered, glancing for help to her now unresponsive head of security. “The knowledge we could give to the world-”

“Enough. You torture and tear human beings apart against their will and there is nothing right about that.” Andy barked. “Our lives, our choices, are ours to use as we wish and we choose to help humanity in a different way. You don’t get to decide.”

Quynh’s sword flashed and a seam opened in Meta Kozak’s throat and dropped to the deck, gurgling. It took very little time for the woman to join the others on the deck in death and a collective sigh of relief seemed to pass through the group when she was gone.

Andy turned to Quynh in concern. “I thought you weren’t going to board the ship. Are you alright?!”

Quynh gave her a shaky smile. “We are family. I will not leave you all behind to face this alone, no matter how much I didn’t want to set foot on this ship.” A groaning of metal sounded and the boat tipped even more.

“But I also think I’ve had all I can take,” Quynh breathed out harshly, face looking panicked. The knuckles of her hand gripped her Kiem until her skin turned white.

“It’s going under!” Nicky warned. Without warning the boat lurched and tipped away from the dock it was parked next to. The listing of the boat had displaced the gang plank, leaving them no choice. With quick leaps, they each vaulted over the side of the boat and dove into the water. Swimming to put distance between themselves and the quickly sinking ship, they made their way to the closest safety ladder.

“Did you get him?” Copley leaned over the side.

Andy sputtered in surprise, climbing the ladder quickly to allow the others up as well. “You were supposed to be at the other ship with Quynh! I thought you guys were prepping the boat.”

Copley shrugged as they all climbed up to the dock, bedraggled and dripping as the boat sank behind them. “Quynh insisted that we come back to help. And since she’s supposed to watch out for me, she made me come with her.”

“And where the hell did you get rocket launchers?”

Copley shrugged as he helped the others up. “I’m CIA. I’ve got a few friends and connections. Figured we could use some back up.”

Booker shoved his wet hair out of his face. “It was just what we needed. Kozak would have gotten on that helo if you hadn’t taken it out.”

Copley hefted both rocket launchers in his arms. “Actually, I can only take credit for the second shot to the boat. The honor of the helo was Quynh’s.” He handed one to her. Quynh sidled up to Andy, holding the launcher with possessive affection.

Andy brushed a few wet strands of hair from her love’s face. “I am proud of you. But know I would have been no less proud even if you hadn’t been able to step onto that boat.” Quynh nuzzled into her touch, a look of understanding passing between the two women.

Joe grinned. “You saved the day, Q. We couldn’t let Kozak and Damien get away.”

Quynh grinned gleefully. “I like the rocket launcher.”

“I’d say we found our heavy fire specialist,” Nicky added. While waiting in Surrey, they had tried to acquaint Quynh with modern firearms, but she’d taken little interest in it, choosing to stick to her sword and bow. Andy had continued to teach her despite Quynh’s reluctance, since the knowledge was vital in the world today. But the gleam in Quynh’s eye indicated her new affinity for things that go boom.

“Nice shooting, Terminator,” Nile hip bumped Quynh. “You better get rid of it, though. I can hear sirens.”

“Nile is right. We need to go now,” Copley agreed.

Quynh sadly tossed the rocket launcher into the water, Andy promising to get her another. They all drew Booker into the middle of their midst, enclosing him safely within their ranks. With their family back together and safe, they melted into the night.

**Author's Note:**

> *Dio santo (o my god)  
> Yah Allah (my god)  
> người yêu dấu (dear one)  
> Va te faire foutre, salope (go fuck yourself, bitch)  
> VBSS= Visit, breach, search and seizure. Navy Military term for boarding vessels in bodies of water.  
> C’est de ma faute. Je suis désolé. je suis vraiment désolé.= Its my fault. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.  
> je suis là= I am here (Thank you Matteic for the help)
> 
> well, i will take a quick detour to cover more about Quynh's nightmare prior to this story and then pick up with what comes next. we're not done yet! Booker's still got some moves he needs to make.


End file.
